What is systematics

An intrinsic part of this idea is that groups of organisms change over time. This realization is the key component to the methodology known as cladistics, which is our current systematic paradigm. The method uses these advanced characters, or synapomorphies, to produce explicit, testable patterns of phylogenetic relationship among organisms. In recent years, researchers have continued to refine the methodology, seeking the best ways by which to analyze character data to produce these patterns, as well as devising methods for evaluating the strength of these hypotheses, developing new sources of character information, and realizing the power of the resulting patterns when applied to any questions that deal with the evolution of organisms or their characters.

The study of evolution is often considered to be closely related to systematics. In fact, the two are essentially cause and effect. Although systematics can be done without regard to any process, since in its starkest form it is only a study of patterns without regard to how they came about, most researchers see evolution as the causal agent for these patterns.

Hence, studies of evolution examine the processes, at the individual and population level, that lead to the patterns that we study in systematics. As the sub-discipline of biology that investigates relationships of taxa, systematics is the foundation for comparative biology.

Comparative biology is that type of study that attempts to relate features of one organism, or type of organism, to features in another type of organism. This always is a question of homology, or sameness due to common evolutionary origin.

In systematic studies we hypothesize homology of features among taxa and then gather data to test these hypotheses. This is important because appearance alone is often not a good indicator that features in different taxa are homologous -- many times similar structures will evolve independently in different lineages. If they are homologous, we expect that they will share many things because of their common ancestry, while if they are not, it is impossible to predict just how similar they will be.

Hence, any study that asks why or how about a feature in more than one taxon, and draws comparative conclusions about them, rests on a systematic foundation. We can identify specific roles for systematic studies and the patterns they produce, as follows: 1. A long-standing role for systematists is that of going into the field and collecting samples of organisms, then comparing them with known specimens in order to determine whether something significantly different has been found -- a new species.

Such work depends upon the expertise of specialists who are intimately familiar with the natural variation in a particular group. This expertise can only be gained by first-hand experience with the organisms, both in the field and in biodiversity collections. Once species have been defined, names are given to them according to rules of nomenclature for the group. Higher level taxa genera, families, etc. The resulting classifications provide a basis for communication about taxa for the scientific community and for the world at large.

Systematic patterns are hypotheses of the history of life and form the basis for modern classifications. Once we know what organisms exist, we can then ask questions about how they came to be as they are today. Phylogenetic analysis allows us to combine data from extant organisms with data from fossils to provide hypotheses of relationship -- to actually reconstruct the history of life.

See more words from the same year. Accessed 12 Nov. More Definitions for systematics. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Log in Sign Up. Save Word. Definition of systematics. Examples of systematics in a Sentence Recent Examples on the Web There are errors that are well-quantified from three sources: statistics, systematics , and external input uncertainties; all of them are far too insignificant to explain this discrepancy.

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